Shatterpoint of a Rebellion
by kiku65
Summary: ANH beckons! I had a tossup between this and when ObiWan was killed but chose this because 1 It has the fatherson team like the other OT and 2 Old Obi gets a lookin during it. And yes, still Matthew Stover style, cos I like it :Dunno if this is as good as


**Shatterpoint of a Rebellion**

ANH beckons! I had a toss-up between this and when Obi-Wan was killed- but chose this because 1) It has the father-son team like the other OT and 2) Old Obi gets a look-in during it. And yes, still Matthew Stover style, cos I like it.

I live for reviews. Remember, every time you forget the Force creates a Gungun.

Please. Think of the Gunguns! (/insert star wars scream)

* * *

The strange thing about stories is they don't stop. 

Thirty-two years ago a slave boy saved a planet from invasion, saved an army from extinction, to save the ones he loved from death. He did this in the age of heroes, a brighter age, and a more civilized time.

Now a farmboy from the same planet seeks to save the ones he loves by doing exactly the same thing. Like the slave, he is brave. Like the slave, he is young. And like the slave, he has the Force.

The slave himself flies above the threat as well. Two heroes, on two sides of a war that will rip the galaxy apart again and set brother against brother, father against son. Heroes on both sides will seek to do what they are now, to save the ones they love from cold death. History repeats itself, evil and good swing in a freefall, a shatterpoint of time.

_They flew…_

The strange thing about the age of heroes is it never ended.

* * *

This is Luke Skywalker: 

Somehow, when you daydreamed of piloting on the farm, you didn't expect this.

Men who had laughed, cried, joked, grumbled, ate, slept a few hours ago… vanish a ball of superheated gas, or spin away trailing ion efflux and burnout from fuel. TIEs zip among heavier Y-wing bombers, points of green light arching from hidden cannons to blow away men and women you had spoken with what feels like days ago, but was in reality only an hour.

All the while the ugly sphere of metal, the colossus of greed and arrogance that lies at the heart of this, hovers over the planet you have sworn to protect. Leia is down there, sweet beautiful Leia, and the thought drives you to kill men you have never seen, will now never see. But still Rebels die.

When you daydreamed of flight among the stars, you didn't expect to be _losing_.

The first two attacks have failed, most of the participants blown away by the mysterious TIE pilot who hunts them in a jungle of cold metal. One only is left, refusing all help and limping from a shot to his engines.

"_Get set up for your attack run._"

He vanishes on the surface with a scream and an expansion of superheated gas and metal. Confused and heartsore at his sacrifice, you sigh out an order to your wingmates.

Time to _end_ this.

* * *

This is Darth Vader: 

A disappointing hit, only an engine blown, the target dieing in a crash upon the surface. Not worthy of a man with an unmatched kill-score in starfighter piloting, who had defeated a Trade Federation droid command ship at the age of nine. Compared to that, this was like shooting womprats in a tub.

A third group of womprats skim into the trench at full throttle, and you give a smile made painful by scars. Evidently the leader had learned from his comrades, and was concentrating on _him_ rather than the inefficient turbolasers. A brave and intelligent decision.

Such a pity it would be his last.

You hover in the shadow of the trench, a vine cat in the treetops, a strange sea predator lurking in a reef. Your prey carries on oblivious of impending death, seeking only to strike at an impossible target. The levers snap and you follow.

The starships are X-wings, a good class of ship reminiscent of the old ARC-170. Nostalgia threatens for a moment, as you remember the old war, the old enemies. When you had been young, and happy, with a wife at your side...

You pull yourself irritably back to the present. Black space yawns, the trench lengthens ahead. The leader flew well, almost tempting attack from the heavy guns away from his wingmates. You wonder if this a thought-out plan, or a spontaneous protection….

_Next time_ you're _the bait. _

You snarl at the memory, and throttle forward, pulling the night behind you.

* * *

There were three, racing to the finish along a narrow trench. Three of nearly thirty, the rest blown away in a storm of fire and metal, beautiful as stars. Three against the might of the Empire, and its cold, black monster in his sleek ship. 

An endless flight, and endless road of grey metal and white lights, black space and yellow stars. Grey, white, black, yellow, blurring into a stream of colour and non-colour, of light and shadow. Then streaks of green joined the river.

Now Wedge screams a warning, and the screech of TIEs fills your ears, but you are gone now, you are part of the ship, wearing it like old clothes, the cannons are fists that punch at the towers as you rush past. Green fire halts from the front, but is picked up from behind, as you twist and dodge from side to side, and the howl of the guns fills your ears.

"I'm hit!"

And now there are only two, as the third must peel away, flee for his own life, and the one responsible for crippling him draws closer. The rush of adrenaline flushes out any fear you might have, and you set your sights on the eye of the needle ahead, a small hole so seemingly insignificant it astounds you that twenty-two fighters had to die for it, an emptiness in a moon of metal.

'I can't hold them..."

The second panics, and you feel a shout catch in your throat. In this mad dash, he must be careful; he must not turn away from the battle even for a moment, because the black being that shot Wedge is still behind you, waiting like a hawk-bat to swoop on its prey...

... who screams "Wait, wait!" and explodes in an expanding cloud of red and yellow that in other circumstances would have been pretty, a firework display to please those who had never done this, had never watched a friend die beside them, and felt their hunter turn cold dead eyes to them.

You push the starfighter as fast as it will go, willing yourself to stay alive long enough to avenge him.

Now there is one.

* * *

Brave, bold, soon-to-die, the leader alone flew to challenge what you have spent almost two decades protecting. One pilot to challenge you, an opponent so negligible that you almost abandon the chase right there, and let your wingmen deal with him. But the thrill of the chase draws you in, and you follow willingly, threading his path with lasers. 

The Force congeals like syrup, you can feel it gather around you. Heavy, dark, rich syrup, the sweetness of the darkside lending you greater power, greater control. Through a window of the Force, the starfighter ahead looks tiny and helpless, insignificant as it faced off its impossible task.

Obi-W... your old master had said once, before betrayal had entered your life, that for you the impossible had a habit of merely being difficult. As if being the Chosen One had made you_ magic_, untouchable by storm or stress. Neither had been true.

The fire had touched you. Treachery had touched you.

And for the briefest of moments, minutes into the armour, the presence of another had touched you as well.

The one in front still wanders, avoiding your guns, but you are no longer fully there. Because there is something in his manner of flying, something in the way he took the guns for his wingmates, something that reminds you of another long ago.

Of a man and a boy who had called himself Anakin...

* * *

You lock on to the exhaust port, peering through the computer link to this shallower of men's lives. Two others had tried before you, and how can you, the farmboy, the bushpilot, do any better? The others had been experienced, older, wiser, better. You have nothing, and so you look through the viewer and pray... 

... and something answers with the mouth of the dead.

_Use the Force Luke._

You look around, as the dead urge you on. A shatterpoint forms around you, and you can feel its cracks running through space to bind the Death Star, the TIEs, the very planet to you and your ship. Your lungs freeze.

_Let go Luke._

Obi-Wan had told you-_ let go your conscious self. Act on instinct._ But it was one thing to do it with remotes, and quite another to do it with a superweapon that threatened your friends, which had killed your team, which was trying to kill you...

_Luke, trust me._

And the shatterpoint of the flight, of the battle, of the _Rebellion itself _was this...that he would choose to be a pilot or a Jedi.

_I want to learn the ways of the Force and be a Jedi like my father._

You want to make him proud.

You choose the Jedi.

And as the computer switches off, as your friends on Yavin panic, you feel a Jedis' peace, and you know the choice was a right one.

* * *

_The Force is strong with this one._

It was as well. Windu- the traitor, the assassin- could have told you precisely how immense and complex the shatterpoint forming around this starfighter was, how strong the lines binding him to the Force itself were. But Windu is dead, killed by you in a desperate attempt to save the ones you love, and so you can only wonder at the power that lies around the pilot in front of you.

And the power that will be released when he dies.

He is focusing on the exhaust port now; you can sense it as clear as a new star. All his concentration is focused on his goal, and he is letting his guard slip, and you know by long experience that one slip can be fatal...

As it is, as lasers thread to blow away his astromech co-pilot, sparks flying from the droids dome. A real pity that the TIE models don't allow for astromechs- the little hunks of metal could be a true gift to dogfighting pilots.

But you are Sith, and you are alone. You are always alone.

You can feel the pilots' distress, and almost laugh aloud. How could he feel any affection or sorrow over a droid? The very idea is absurd...

"_Artoo's in here somewhere! We can't leave him!"_

You hiss obscenities, cursing the tormenting memories of your youth, when things had been so much brighter and simpler. Grimly, you focus on your opponent, and swear that you will kill him, this pilot who brings back such echoes of innocence and purity. Of freedom.

You lock directly on him and say your triumph aloud.

"I have you now!"

* * *

As soon as you see the port you can sense a moment of terrible _wrongness_- as if the entirety of evil in the galaxy had seen you, a scrap of flesh and bone in a fragile craft of metal, seeking to destroy its reign forever, and as if it had come to hunt you down and laugh at your failure. The feeling lasts only for a moment, before threads of green sweep past you... 

...and a blast echoes. You are amazed it is not you.

"Your all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"

You're so tense you barely notice, through layers of joy, that you are free of your hunter, free to strike back at the entity that has blighted your short life. All you care is that you were right, that your friend was here with you, that he _cared_. And so, in comparison, the pressing of your trigger is a small thing.

The rocket flies, trailing protons, and you gasp as adrenaline backwash hits you. But it isn't over yet. Now the torpedo is swooping down, but the superlaser is readying, the remaining fighters are flying away, the planet is lying there helpless...

And behind you the greatest threat to freedom since the old Sith Empire blows to the smallest particles imaginable, the shatterpoint becoming a galaxy of stars. You are young, and free, and alive, your friends are alive with you, this is the happiest you have ever been, your proudest moment. For now, the tarnish of the years to come is nothing, because you are Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin Skywalker, and a hero in your own right.

And as you fly back to your heroes welcome, you hear Bens' voice, echoed by a host of fallen Jedi...

_The Force will be with you. Always._

* * *

This is the two heroes: 

The farmboy receives his heroes welcome. The bright star of his future shines on undiminished, he has grown from the boy that entered space only hours before. As he stands in the award ceremony he is full of light, and calls a wish into the Force-

_I wish you could see this father. I'll make you proud._

His father drifts in space, thinking of the strange pilot who had bested him in battle. Luck and friends aside, the boy was still dangerously skilled, and now he would be a gathering point for the Rebels, as well as the Force.

He stares into the starfield around him, and makes a promise.

_I will find you. We will meet again, Rebel._

The Force keeps all promises. And so will they.


End file.
